MUSKEGON, MI -- Ryan Jamar Day has been bound over for trial on a charge of threatening to commit an act of terrorism by threatening to shoot up Muskegon High School.

The charge is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

After a preliminary hearing Monday morning, Chief Muskegon County 60th District Judge Maria Ladas Hoopes found probable cause that Day, 21, of Muskegon Heights, committed the act, and that the "terrorism" charge was appropriate.

Two Muskegon High School officials testified that on March 8 Day made the threat.

Assistant Principal Kelly Baldwin said he showed up, upset and talking on his cell phone, shortly after she had helped break up a disturbance among students at the school. The students were still milling around in the hallway when Day arrived, she said.

Baldwin testified Day told him a student had threatened his sister, who attends the school, during that disturbance.

She said Day began swearing and yelling at the student when he saw him. When he wouldn't calm down Baldwin tried to escort him out the door.

"He said f--- that, I’m going to shoot up this whole f---ing school," she testified.

Day did leave the building out the front door on Southern Street and she did not see any weapons on him, she said.

Chandar Ricks, a student discipline specialist at the school, testified he heard Day repeatedly threatened to shoot up the school after he was outside in the school courtyard. Ricks said he heard that at least three times.

A Muskegon police officer testified that he searched the home where Day had lived and found a handgun and a rifle.

Public defender Joseph A. Fisher argued that the legal definition of "terrorism" didn't fit the action that Day allegedly threatened. The law requires that a threatened violent, dangerous action be "intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence or affect the conduct of government."